


Sun Rise

by undun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, barely there slash, requiring slash goggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undun/pseuds/undun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here he would find Severus Snape; here he would come face to face with the man for the first time since he had supposedly died...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Rise

Sun Rise

 

St. Mungo’s was relatively quiet at this hour of the morning. It wasn’t yet visiting hours for the patients so Harry hoped to avoid gossipers, and the odd lurking reporter, avidly scanning faces for a scoop for the Daily Prophet. He wanted to slip in and slip out without fuss. Walking quickly along the corridors, he scanned the writing on each door until he found the one he wanted – ‘Poisons Patient Care’. He paused before he entered the ward. Here he would find Severus Snape; here he would come face to face with the man for the first time since he had supposedly died, bleeding out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Harry took a deep breath and turned the handle.

 

“Snape,” Harry began. The dark-clothed wizard was seated on the edge of his hospital bed, facing away from Harry. His head twitched slightly in Harry’s direction.

 

“Severus,” Harry amended. There was something accusatory about the name ‘Snape’, encumbered as it was with all the past hatred he’d had for the man. ‘Severus’ was the name his mother had used – ‘Sev’ more precisely, but Harry suspected no one else had ever used that name for Snape, and likely no one ever would again.

 

The wizard turned to face him slowly, his face glowing white in the pre-dawn light glinting through the windows (of course, being four floors below street level, it was all done with magic). Harry regarded the man, noting his unearthly pallor and thinness; too substantial to be a ghost, but too ethereal to belong entirely to this world. The illusion was dispelled once Snape opened his mouth.

 

“The hero of the hour. He honours me with his presence,” Snape drawled, “and with dubious familiarity.”

 

Harry rolled his eyes. No change then. “Do you want your memories back?” he asked. Now he just wanted to get on with it and get out.

 

Snape stared at him as if he were the ghostly one.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

Harry delved into the pocket of his jeans, his fingers closing around the smooth glass bottle there. “Your memories,” he repeated, drawing the bottle out and holding in his hand.

 

“My…”

 

“You gave them to me as you were… well, I think you did die, for a bit anyway.” Harry stumbled to silence. He stepped closer to Snape, the bottle on his outstretched palm. “They’re all in there. And I think,” he coughed, his throat suddenly dry. “I want to say thanks, for everything – all of it, what you did.” Harry swallowed noisily.

 

Snape reached out a hand, fingers stroking lightly over the surface of the bottled memories. His eyes snapped up and pinned Harry, causing him to swallow again.

 

“I don’t want them back.” Snape drew his hand back. “You may keep them if you wish. Or throw them into the lake if you prefer.”

 

“But, it’s my mum!” he blurted, “My mum’s in there.”

 

Snape nodded, the smallest of curves at the corner of his mouth. “Yes, she is. Keep them then – I have kept her to myself for long enough,” he responded. “I should have given her up years ago,” he added.

 

“Why? What do you mean? Didn’t she give you the reasons you needed to do what you did?” Harry hadn’t intended to keep talking – he’d been hoping to be well away by now. But he had questions fizzing through his brain and Snape, in a bizarre twist, was actually talking to him rather than spitting and hissing.

 

“She trapped me,” Snape replied, his voice oddly serene. “I should have done what was right without the weight of her around my neck all these years. Anything good, any act of morality I undertook was rendered ash by my memories of her.”

 

Harry closed his hand around the bottle, frowning as he pondered Snape’s words.

 

“Like you didn’t really own your actions,” he murmured, “like you were forced into them.”

 

“Yes, precisely,” Snape agreed with a note of surprise, his eyebrows rising.

 

“I get that.” Harry nodded. He snugged the bottle back into his pocket with a brief pat.

 

“I see that you do. Did you grow up while I was dead, Potter?” Snape’s voice was unexpectedly gentle.

 

Harry snorted. “I must have. Did you come back to life as a decent bloke then?”

 

The curve at the corner of Snape’s mouth veered upwards briefly. “I shouldn’t like to live up to that claim.” Snape tipped his head slightly as he stared at Harry.

 

“You are not so like your father, and not so like your mother. You are something different, with just the faintest of echoes left of your parents.”

 

“My eyes,” Harry began; his eyes had transfixed Snape as he lay dying. He would never forget watching Snape’s face steadily losing what colour it had, watching the awareness leaving his eyes.

 

“She never saw what you have seen, Harry. Your eyes are yours alone.”

 

What a difference discarding some troublesome memories could make to a bitter old man. Not so old perhaps, Harry thought, though Snape could use some solid meals and a bit of sun.

 

“Well, I suppose I’ll get going,” Harry said, shuffling his feet. “I’m trying to avoid crowds at the moment.”

 

Something of Snape’s past sneer was present as he said, “Your adoring public getting too demanding?”

 

He really has mellowed, Harry observed. “Yeah, my hand is getting cramped from signing all the photos.”

 

Snape huffed. He stood slowly and stiffly, looking down at Harry. “I’ll accompany you, if I may?”

 

“You’re leaving?” Harry asked, shocked. The man looked like a puffskein would knock him over.

 

“Indeed. I’ve been discharged this morning, just before you arrived,” Snape replied. He took a step and Harry turned to walk with him towards the door.

 

“Where will you go?” he enquired as they left the ward.

 

“Home, I suppose,” Snape replied.”

 

“No, you can’t.”

 

“I do beg your pardon?” Snape asked haughtily.

 

“You need someone to look after you for a while – you’re not well enough to be living alone,” he explained.

 

“What makes you think I’ll be living alone?” Snape asked him tersely.

 

Harry just met his eyes for a moment. Snape sighed and his shoulders drooped slightly.

 

“You can come home with me until you’re feeling better,” Harry offered. It was more of a command, but he’d at least made a token acknowledgement of Snape’s right to choose.

 

The wizard shuffling slowly beside him let out a gusty breath. “Very well, Potter.”

 

Harry carefully lifted the man’s arm to drape it over his shoulders. Snape’s hand felt cold even through Harry’s sleeve. Self-consciously, he wrapped his left arm around Snape’s spare waist. Snape’s hand tightened briefly on his shoulder.

 

As they left St. Mungo’s, the sun broke free of the horizon.

 

~oOo~

**Author's Note:**

> It's 'post the backlog' day.


End file.
